Our world is busy, noisy, and full of constant communication from people, phones, computers, televisions, and radios—the list is endless. It is full of anger, jealousy, addiction, cruelty, and abuse—again, the list is endless. But our world is also beautiful, blessed, hopeful, creative, and compassionate—and yes, thank God, this list is endless, too.
As Christians, we must decipher all these words, experiences, and emotions to hear what God is asking of us. Unfortunately, this process is not always easy.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us, “From within people, from their hearts comes evil thoughts” (Mark 7:21). I have to admit, that passage rattled me because I have tried to live my life according to what my heart tells me; I know it is one of the ways God communicates with me. But now, I realize that the evil one can communicate with me the same way—and that reality scares me.
Instead, we need to live our lives based on our faith and the words we hear in sacred Scriptures and prayer. We must also be aware of our thought processes and the words that continually bombard us in order to decipher which are worthy of retaining, sharing with others, and living a good Christian life by. The words we find to be rubbish, sinful, and useless are words we need to forget. They are not worth saying or sharing because they simply add to all the other ugly, evil noises that our world already deals with.
I apologize for not being able to answer this week’s question in the way that I would have liked, but this question has made me cognizant of my own shortcomings. It has made me aware of things that I need to change in my life, bringing an adage that I learned as a child to the forefront of my mind: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” (Charles Caleb Cotton).
